The men patiently waited their turn to retrieve their bus tickets from the counter. Dressed in nondescript clothing, they carried their belongings in the kind of coarse plastic mesh bag you might buy 10 lbs. of grapefruit in and clutched manilla envelopes to their chests. Thinking they might be recently released from immigration detention, I sidled over to the man at the end of the line and asked “Ustedes son inmigrantes?”
“What?” he replied in American-accented English.
Apologetically, I excused myself and made my way back to my usual section of the waiting room, realizing they had indeed been recently released from the Texas prison system.
It was a quiet Friday. With no asylum seekers needing my attention, I settled in with a book to wait for the next volunteer to arrive in a few hours. Glancing up, I saw the men from the ticket line settling themselves in across from me. One of them—Mario—offered a greeting, and I set my book down and began to listen as the told me his story.
Mario eagerly shared the story of a movie he’d seen recently starring Julia Roberts as the mother of a man trying to free himself from addiction but who seemed to be snared in webs he cannot untangle. In a pivotal moment, the mother refuses to leave her son to sort out a dangerous situation alone. Mario said, “I wish I had a mother like that.” Mario knew all too well the difficulties and temptations ahead. He’d walked this road home from prison before, and he was looking at a minimum 25-year sentence if he faltered again.
Another man asked, “Has anyone ever told you that going to prison was the best thing that ever happened to them?” He went on to relate how at every critical juncture he would find himself in just the place he needed to be to move forward. The book that spoke directly to him would find its way into his hands; an unexpected transfer would put him in contact with a person who said something he needed to hear.
At that very moment, he was exactly where he needed to be for Mario, a functionally illiterate former cocaine dealer trying to maintain his sobriety, who was desperately in need of hope. And he was also exactly where he needed to be for me.
Brene Brown writes, “Everyone has a story that will break your heart.” I left the bus station that afternoon and cried—and I was glad. For months I had been living with the question, “What stirs your heart?” With a heart cracked open, a couple of former prisoners entered in and stirred my heart anew.
